Toughening blade without a full heat treat?

[sph3ric pyramid]

I have a ground out knife that I made a while ago from an annealed file, and at the moment, don't have the proper facilities to do a full heat-treat (had access to an electric oven previously that would get to the proper temperatures).

With that in mind, I thought that I might as well just make a nice (if extremely overbuilt) letter opener as practice, and so have ground down the edge pretty thin, and am thinking about finishing it up with a fine satin finish.

So I have something of a problem: I can either try to heat treat the blade later on when I have the proper facilities/materials and risk warping in the quench (due to the thin, almost finished edge), or I can go ahead and just make this a letter opener.

The edge geometry would make it an excellent slicer anyway, so I was wondering if there was a way to harden/toughen the blade without a full heat-treat so it would be of a bit more use than just as a letter opener. Or is there any quick way of doing a heat treat without too many materials (am slightly short of funds at the moment)? I don't really have any space available to build a fire, or anything like that, unfortunately.

 

[AwP]

Here's a link to a really small easy forge http://forgegallery.elliscustomknifeworks.com/
If your blade is short enough you can even just use a torch without the firebrick housing.

 

[mete]

You could cold work the edge like they did in the old days of iron and bronze blades.

 

[delbert ealy]

send it to me along with $10 and I'll do the threat for you
Del
www.ealyknives.com